The Royal Ontario Museum opens a new $240 million extension by Daniel Libeskind. “A city as large and complex as Toronto has room for this kind of audacious experiment. There is architectural delirium at the reinvented ROM. And ecstasy, too. The Royal Ontario Museum, like many museums of civilization around the globe, offers collections dedicated to the great artistic triumphs of the world as well as the evolutionary complexity of nature. So, why does it feel as though we’ve landed in the Inferno or possibly the Purgatorio of Dante Alighieri’s The Divine Comedy?”
Tag: 06.02.07
It All Depends On How You Define “Definitive”
The British public has declared (through an online survey) that George Orwell’s 1984 is the definitive book of the 20th century. Also making the list were The Great Gatsby, The Grapes of Wrath, and, um… Bridget Jones’s Diary.
Canadian Vocalists Score On The International Stage
The Montreal International Musical Competition has brought much attention to its host city since launching in 2002, but this year, attention is also being paid to the stunning success of homegrown talent. Despite a blind judging process, more than half of the finalists at this year’s vocal competition are Canadian, and many are seeing it as a sign that Canada has become a leader in the training of top-flight singers.
What Will We Put In All The Pretty Buildings?
Toronto has been undergoing a healthy cultural building boom recently, but some observers have begun wondering whether the city has “the kind of exhibits, holdings and performances that will really live up to our world-class aspirations.”
Viennese Holocaust Archives Unearthed
A huge archive documenting Austria’s involvement in the Holocaust has gone on display at Vienna’s Jewish Museum. “The Vienna cache makes up one of the largest Holocaust archives of any Jewish community, some two million pages. With it historians will be better able to understand how the Holocaust unfolded and provide a window into the daily life of Vienna’s Jews.”
Dancing Around Fear
When your dance troupe markets itself as a purveyor of extreme action and occasionally dangerous stunts, injuries probably have to be considered an occupational hazard. But that doesn’t make it any easier for your dancers to recover their confidence when a colleague suffers a serious injury.
Latin American Art Museum Finally In The Spotlight
“The Museum of Latin American Art in Long Beach has been like the downtrodden stepchild of Southern California’s glamorous museum family — often ignored by critics, overlooked by art elites and forced to work overtime for every scrap of credibility it can muster… This month, though, MOLAA has put on its glass slipper and is finally ready for the ball. Expanded and remodeled with a dramatic, traffic-stopping facade, the museum is celebrating a grand reopening with a monthlong series of cultural events.”
The Great Elgar Debate
British newspapers have been full of polemics about the composer Edward Elgar recently, and much of the debate has been over who gets to claim Elgar, and for what purpose. “Great art has a dimension beyond the local, and it is true that Elgar could do with more foreign champions, because his music isn’t as well-known beyond these shores as it should be. But that doesn’t mean we can’t celebrate it for what it says to and about us.”
Aiming For A More Intimate Opera
Dallas’s new opera house is beginning to take shape, more than two years before it will officially open, and already, the promise of the new facility is having an impact on the city’s cultural scene. “What’s already striking is how compact the audience chamber will be… Greater intimacy is a big part of the new building’s raison d’être, [and] the success of Toronto’s Four Seasons Centre for the Performing Arts, which opened last fall, reinforces that promise.”
Eschenbach’s Fall
Christoph Eschenbach is now a lame duck in both Paris and Philadelphia, and come 2010, “for the first time in decades, [he] will be without a formal orchestral appointment.” Usually, the orchestra world keeps its internal workings close to the vest, but Eschenbach has been speaking out, blaming poor orchestra management. But in referring to executives in both Paris and Philly as “amateurish,” he may have created an even more uncomfortable situation for himself and his musicians in Philadelphia.